The World Health Organization estimates that by 2050 there will be more than one billion people across the world that are age 65 and over. It was predicted that about half of these people will have some Tau inclusions (e.g., neurofibrillary tangles (NFT)) in their brains.
Accumulation of NFTs or other inclusions containing Tau in the brain are histopathological features of many neurodegenerative diseases, which are collectively known as tauopathies. Tauopathies include, e.g., Alzheimer's disease (AD), Pick's disease (PiD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD), and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).
Tau is encoded by a Tau gene. It was reported that mutations in the tau gene may cause some forms of frontotemporal dementia (7-10), signifying that Tau dysfunction is sufficient to cause neurodegeneration. Moreover, pathological Tau appears to be an integral part of Aβ-induced neurotoxicity in cell culture and transgenic mouse models (3-5).
Tau pathology is thus involved and may be a cause of many tauopathies.
Therapeutic agents and compositions for therapeutic intervention in and/or prevention of tauopathies and diagnostic agents and compositions for use in diagnosis and monitoring of tauopathies may be of great value.